How the Anti-Woke Crowd Suffers Most from Disrespecting Others
By Tom Kagy | 30 May, 2026

The urge to disrespect others is the clearest sign of low self-esteem, and a strong marker for poverty and ill-health.

(Image by ChatGPT)

Woke as a concept originated to mean awareness that other people have struggles, dignity and rights that deserve respect. 

Somewhere along the way the word got twisted into a cartoon villain used to mock empathy itself.  Now people use “woke” to sneer at everything from basic courtesy to inclusion to simply refraining from humiliating strangers for sport.

But stripped of politics and internet tribalism, the core idea behind what people call “woke” is simple: treat other people like human beings.

That’s it.

Psychologically speaking, people who are comfortable doing that tend to be healthier, happier, more socially successful and emotionally stable than people who are constantly driven to mock, diminish or dominate others.

In fact, one of the strongest signs of inner turmoil is the compulsive need to disrespect other people’s identities, lifestyles or happiness. The obsession with tearing others down usually has much less to do with the target than with the emotional condition of the person doing the attacking.

Disdain is often self-hatred wearing a disguise.

The Mirror Mechanism

One of the most powerful psychological mechanisms humans possess is projection. We don’t merely observe the world objectively. We project our own insecurities, fears, frustrations and self-judgments outward onto other people.

Someone ashamed of their own weakness often becomes obsessed with “toughness.” Someone terrified of social rejection may become intensely judgmental toward outsiders. Someone who secretly feels inadequate may compulsively attack people who appear comfortable with themselves.

The hostility feels external, but its emotional source is internal.

This is why people who spend enormous amounts of energy raging about others often seem strangely consumed by what they claim to hate. Their emotional fixation reveals that the target has become psychologically symbolic. The other person represents some disowned part of themselves.

A man uncomfortable with his own vulnerability may lash out at emotional openness in others. Someone insecure about their own attractiveness may mock people who confidently express themselves online. A person ashamed of their own life choices may resent those who appear freer, happier or less constrained.

The attack becomes a form of emotional outsourcing.

Instead of confronting their own pain directly, they try to destroy the reminder.

Why Disrespect Feels Temporarily Good

Disrespect produces a short-term emotional high because it creates the illusion of superiority.

Mocking someone’s appearance, identity, beliefs or lifestyle gives the brain a brief sense of elevation. It’s a primitive status maneuver. For a moment, the insulter feels larger because someone else has been pushed downward.

But this emotional boost is unstable because it isn’t built on genuine self-worth. It depends entirely on keeping others beneath you.

That’s why contempt becomes addictive.

People who rely on disdain for emotional regulation need constant new targets. They become trapped in an endless search for fresh enemies, fresh outrages and fresh groups to ridicule because the underlying insecurity never actually gets resolved.

Healthy self-esteem doesn’t require humiliation rituals.

People who genuinely like themselves usually don’t spend much time obsessing over whether strangers are living “the wrong way.” They may disagree with others, even strongly, but they don’t feel psychologically threatened by difference itself.

That distinction matters enormously.

The Health Connection

There’s a reason chronic hostility is associated with poor health outcomes.

Decades of psychological and medical research have shown that people with high levels of anger, contempt and chronic antagonism experience elevated stress hormones, higher cardiovascular risk, worse sleep quality and greater social isolation.

The body keeps score.

A brain constantly scanning for enemies never fully relaxes. It lives in a perpetual state of low-grade threat detection. That means more cortisol, more inflammation, more anxiety and more emotional exhaustion.

Meanwhile, people who cultivate empathy, social trust and emotional openness tend to develop stronger relationships and support networks. They generally experience lower chronic stress and greater life satisfaction.

Humans are social animals. Our nervous systems evolved not only for competition but for cooperation. Respectful social connection is biologically regulating.

That doesn’t mean people should become passive or endlessly agreeable. It simply means that a lifestyle organized around contempt slowly poisons the person generating it.

You can actually see this dynamic play out online every day.

The people most consumed by outrage often appear emotionally depleted. Their identities become fused with resentment. Every interaction becomes an opportunity for sneering, mocking or moral domination. Over time their personalities narrow into permanent grievance machines.

That’s not vitality. That’s psychological decay.

Why Poverty Often Magnifies Disrespect

One uncomfortable truth is that chronic disrespect often flourishes in environments of economic stress, instability and low social mobility.

That doesn’t mean poor people are inherently disrespectful. Far from it. Many working-class communities display extraordinary warmth, generosity and solidarity.

But chronic insecurity does create conditions that intensify status anxiety.

When people feel powerless economically, they often seek substitute forms of status. One of the cheapest and fastest ways to manufacture status is through social domination, ridicule and exclusion.

If you can’t feel superior through achievement, wealth, health or stability, you may start trying to feel superior through contempt.

This is why periods of economic decline often coincide with rising cultural hostility. People under pressure become more psychologically reactive. They become more vulnerable to narratives that blame vulnerable groups, outsiders or cultural “deviants” for their own frustration.

Scapegoating becomes emotionally seductive because it simplifies pain.

Instead of confronting complicated structural problems or personal disappointments, anger gets redirected toward symbolic enemies.

The emotional logic becomes:

“My life feels unstable, therefore someone else must be corrupting society.”

But resentment rarely improves actual living conditions. It mostly drains emotional energy that could’ve gone toward growth, adaptation, connection or self-improvement.

The Confident Don’t Need Purity Campaigns

One striking trait of emotionally secure people is that they usually don’t need everyone around them to conform.

They can tolerate difference because their identities aren’t so fragile that every disagreement feels existential.

Insecure people, by contrast, often experience other people’s lifestyles as personal threats. They need external validation because their internal stability is weak.

That’s why they become obsessed with enforcing social conformity.

Every visible difference feels like criticism of their own choices.

A happy unmarried woman threatens someone who regrets marriage. A devoted parent threatens someone uncertain about family life. An openly gay person threatens someone terrified of their own suppressed impulses. A confident immigrant threatens someone insecure about their own status.

The target itself is often secondary. What matters is the psychological discomfort it triggers.

This is also why authoritarian personalities tend to fixate on erasing ambiguity. Complexity creates anxiety. Diversity creates uncertainty. Independent self-expression creates instability.

So they try to impose sameness.

But emotionally healthy people don’t need universal replication of themselves in order to feel okay.

They can coexist.

Respect Is a Manifestation  of Strength

One of the strangest cultural distortions of the past decade has been the idea that cruelty signifies toughness while empathy signifies weakness.

Psychologically, the opposite is often true.

It takes remarkably little strength to insult strangers online, humiliate vulnerable people or join mob ridicule campaigns. That’s usually herd behavior fueled by insecurity and social imitation.

Real confidence is calmer.

Real strength doesn’t panic at difference. It doesn’t feel compelled to dominate every room. It doesn’t need to prove superiority every five minutes.

People with stable self-worth can afford generosity because they don’t experience respect as surrender.

That’s an important point.

Many chronically hostile people interpret respect as loss of status. They imagine dignity as a finite resource. If someone else gains recognition, visibility or acceptance, they feel diminished.

But emotionally healthy people don’t think that way.

They understand that another person’s humanity doesn’t threaten their own.

In fact, respecting others often enhances self-respect because it aligns behavior with psychological maturity.

You become what you repeatedly practice.

If you constantly practice contempt, you slowly become contemptuous. If you constantly practice empathy, curiosity and restraint, your emotional life generally becomes more stable and expansive.

The Internet Has Monetized Disrespect

One major reason contempt feels culturally overwhelming right now is because digital platforms reward it.

Outrage drives engagement. Humiliation generates clicks. Mockery spreads faster than nuance because it activates emotional reflexes.

Social media algorithms discovered that anger is profitable.

As a result, millions of people now spend hours each day immersed in environments designed to maximize hostility and tribalism. Over time that shapes personality.

People start performing cruelty for applause.

The problem is that emotional habits practiced online don’t stay online. They reshape nervous systems, relationships and self-perception.

Constant sneering changes people internally.

It trains the mind to interpret human interaction as warfare rather than connection. It encourages paranoia, cynicism and emotional hypervigilance. Eventually even ordinary disagreement starts feeling like existential combat.

That’s terrible for psychological health.

And ironically, the people most addicted to online contempt often become deeply unhappy themselves.

They mistake stimulation for fulfillment.

Choosing Respect as Self-Protection

If “woke” ultimately means treating people with basic dignity regardless of race, gender, orientation, background or beliefs, then embracing more of it may actually be one of the healthiest psychological choices available.

Not because every ideological trend associated with the term is automatically correct. Some aren’t.

But because the underlying principle of recognizing others’ humanity tends to produce healthier minds and healthier societies than organized contempt does.

Respect regulates. Hatred dysregulates.

Empathy broadens perspective. Contempt narrows it.

Curiosity expands identity. Fear contracts it.

The people most at peace with themselves generally aren’t the ones compulsively hunting for groups to mock or erase. They’re usually the ones secure enough to let other human beings exist without panic.

That’s not weakness.

That’s emotional fitness.

And in an age increasingly addicted to rage, emotional fitness may become one of the rarest and most valuable forms of strength left.